The pandemic has also brought the legal gaming sector to its knees, with the risk, according to a study by the Luiss University, of an increase in the phenomenon of illegal gaming which, according to initial estimates, could have involved up to 4 million players in the game. span of the entire period of the health alarm. Legal gaming is an important axis for public finances, with 11.4 billion paid to the tax authorities in 2019 against revenue halved in 2020, equal to 6.7 billion euros.
How much is the legal game worth
Before the economic-health emergency, the legal gaming industry, as emerges from the research by the Luiss Business School, had an expenditure value of 19.4 billion euros (data referring to 2019), a figure which collapsed by 33% over the course of the of 2020. At the same time there is a growth in digital gaming channels but also an increase in illegal gaming. The state concessionary companies, then, recorded an aggregate turnover of approximately 8 billion in 2019.
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From the analysis of the whole it emerges how the companies that support the activities of the concessionary companies – from software houses to companies that produce hardware for gaming machines, from the printing of coupons or instant wins to physical points in the area such as bars, tobacconists and specialized betting shops – employing about 100 thousand people, an induced highly endangered due to the limitations imposed by Covid-19.
A sustainable model in the legal gaming sector
The commitment of Luiss Business School and Ipsos will therefore be to jointly analyze the evolution of the world of legal gaming thanks to the launch of a research project on the gaming sector within the Observatory on regulated markets, with the aim of provide scientific support to public decision-makers, public gaming concessionary companies, supply chain operators, and civil society stakeholders, also making use of the support of the Customs and Monopolies Agency.
“The aim of the project is to increasingly facilitate the sustainable development of the gaming sector, providing support to thousands of workers and operators and supporting the network that is a defense of legality”, underlined the president of Ipsos, Nando Pagnoncelli. For Raffaele Oriani, full professor of Corporate Finance at Luiss University, “in order to safeguard an essential market for our economy, which is also an instrument to combat illegal and tax evasion, it is necessary to update the regulation of legal gaming, making it more functional to contrasting potential risks for users “.